HHaW: Family Photo
by Zeakari
Summary: Horton Hears a Who: My job is quite simple; I take family photos. Out of all the families I have met, this one is probably the one I look forward to and dread the most. They're called the McDodds...


A/N: Nothing really happens in this story. It's just ramblings about the McDodds through the eyes of some random person who doesn't matter. I just wanted to write another first-person story.

Disclaimer: I do not own Horton Hears a Who. I own Ingrid and Mr. Egorant.

Family Photo

by Zeakari

* * *

My name is Ingrid and I take photos. No, I don't go out taking landscape pictures, and I don't go sightseeing and take tourist photos, nor do I take pictures of anything that is shadowy and deep. I don't do anything all that great. I work for Mr. Egorant, who runs his own little business. He's stuffy, arrogant, and I'm one of his employees. My job is quite simple; I take family photos, both group and individuals. Yeah, not all that great. I wanted to be a fashion photographer, but I am where I am now and I won't go into my life's story.

Now don't take me wrong, I don't hate my job. Seriously, would I stick around for as long as I have if I hated it? I get to see new faces all the time and even make some friends, though a lot are temporary. There are frequent customers and there are come-once customers.

There was this one family I met that had only three to them. Just the kid, the mom, and the dad. Quite typical of a family if it weren't for the fact that the mother was overly controlling over their image to other people. Apparently, she was horribly paranoid of what other people thought of her, so she tried to keep everything picture perfect, if you'll excuse the pun. Normally I wouldn't know this, but people have a habit of opening up to me. I don't know what I do to cause it, but it keeps happening. The guy, I think his name was Wallace, he had ended up talking to me about his wife. We actually warmed up to each other quite fast, but I only saw them once. Either they don't live around here, were dissatisfied with my services, or the wife thought I was trying to take her husband. The last one sounds the most amusing.

But there's this one family that will forever entertain, annoy, and generally hold a big place in my memories. Heck, it'd be _insane_ to forget _this_ one. They're called the McDodds. Recognize the name? Yeah. That's the mayor's family. Out of all the families I have met, this one is probably the one I look forward to and dread the most. They come every year. Every year on the same day. Well, not the same day, really. They always come on a Tuesday for some reason, and it's always in June. It doesn't matter which Tuesday, they just come.

Today's the first Tuesday of June, y'know.

Now, what about this family, you may ask, catches my attention so effortlessly? Well, you could say it had something to do with the fact that the family consisted of ninety-nine Whos, including the parents. They must've had some _big_ litters, seriously. Poor Mrs. McDodd. Oh wait, she always tells me to call her Sally. For some reason she never really liked being called Mrs. McDodd. Too formal, she would say.

If you'll let me ramble a little (not that I haven't been already), I remember the first time they came. Actually, it was more like the first time I had them as customers. I don't know if they came here before, but oh well. More than likely, they did. At the time, their family had been impressive but with only around twenty kids. To be specific, it was twenty-two. Now, that's somewhat more normal than ninety-seven. Honestly, we Whos can have some big litters. I've seen a few other families that had around twenty before. But there was one major difference between this family and the other ones.

One son. One son and twenty-one daughters. How the heck did they do that? Usually the families end up with a relatively even split between sons and daughters. Okay, so there is some imbalance, but never before has it only been _one_ boy and _all_ the rest girls. That's just strange, even for Who-ville. Okay, not that strange, but still.

Anyway, they came in and I was asked to take their photo, considering that was my job. I was pretty nervous. Another thing that kept them memorable was the fact that they were my _first_ family. Fun, eh? Admittedly, they weren't my _very_ first family photo, of _course_ I had taken some for others This one was just the first I was paid for, so I was a bit paranoid about its perfection. My first photo ended up being quite difficult. The girls were young and hyper and we ended up chasing them around. Getting them to sit still was a pain. Getting them a photo where _all_ of their eyes were open, looking at the camera, _and_ smiling. It took seven tries. And then four more. _Then _I had to take an individual photo for _each _and _every _one of those kids for the mayor's wallet. As strange as this may sound, I actually feel a little blessed that my first job was so difficult. It made all the following jobs seem so laughably easy in comparison.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

I rap my fingers in time to the sound of the nearby clock. Today is a slow day. Only one other customer so far, and that was over an hour ago.

That next year's June's Tuesday, they came again. Now the number of kids hit the forties. They must have been _busy_. Innuendo intended. But also busy with all those diapers, food, messes to clean, and just plain kids to pay attention to… How can they find time for them all? None of those kids seem to have been neglected, as far as I can tell. I don't think I could do it. Then again, I've never even had any kids. But good for them, though. They all seem so happy. The McDodds must be great parents, seriously, because that many kids would drive most Whos insane.

Every time they would come, I would see more kids with them. They never had the same amount of kids from one year to the next until last year. It seemed as though they finally decided they had enough kids. I'd say make it an even hundred and have three more, but that's just me. Then again, one more would make the _whole_ family an even hundred rather than three more making just the kids an even hundred. Anyway, what's a few more kids compared to ninety-seven?

I got to know them a little, despite the fact that they only come once a year. One of them, Holly, has a strange fascination with light bulbs. I know this because she had brought a bunch for her single photo one year. There are these two twins too. They're always braiding each other's hair, and once they even managed to tie them together. And, with how swiftly they did it, I think they've done it before. One of the younger ones used it as a swing and then they jump-roped with it. Quite an amusing day that was.

There's one that I'll never forget, though. Her name's Penelope. Easily remembered considering it was yelled quite a bit. An enthusiastic little one, she is. Especially when she was younger. She decided that I made a good trampoline. I have no idea why, but she did. She had been quite squirmy and instead of staying in her mother's arms like she was supposed to, she ran around the room, squealing obnoxiously. She got the other kids going too, but Sally and the mayor had a much easier time calming them down than Penelope. I think it might have been the cute little kitten design I had on my front that day that made her bolt towards me. She actually ran and jumped on me, knocking me into a bunch of equipment. I ended up with a few nasty bruises and a ridiculous amount of apologies from the parents. They offered to take me to the hospital and everything, but I told them no. So we just took the pictures like every year. This time, though, I was a little annoyed--but grateful--to find a little more money than there should have been. Oh well.

The bell at the door jingles and my head shoots up. It's just some primped up daughter and some guy, obviously her father. Senior photos. The job takes a total of less than fifteen minutes of actual picture-taking and at least an hour of the kid getting herself even more primped up after every two shots. Soon enough, though, they're gone. Once more, I'm rapping my fingers against the counter and my eyes glaze over.

Mr. Mayor seems like a real nice guy, actually. When it comes to political figures, I always think that the way they act in public is just that; an act. But it seems as though he's genuinely warm-hearted. He's the epitome of a family man, y'know?

I got to know Sally most out of all of them, though. She's very down-to-earth and very easy to talk to. I think she has that weird thing that I have except much stronger, because I actually ended up opening up to her rather than her to me. It was one of those days where everything seems to go wrong right from the start. Alarm clock doesn't ring, you're late and reprimanded, one of the customer's kids ends up spitting up all over you and another threatens to burn down the shop, all that fun. Y'know those days, right? One of my coworkers had taken over my job for the day since I had been so late, but I refused to leave. Stubborn stupidity or stupid stubbornness, you can go ahead and decide. Sally ended up noticing my stress and easily lead me into ranting about how crappy the world is. Like I said, I was having a bad day. But she's good. She made me forget all about it for a while, at least after I had vented. And to be honest, the rest of my day was generally pleasant after that. I even went home early, though I technically should have gone home much earlier.

But you want to know what's one thing that kind of bugs me about the McDodds? Their sole, single, solitary son. Jojo. I've been batting this idea around in my head as a little joke… but what if he ended up just like a girl? All those sisters around him, he's got to have absorbed at least _some_ of their girlishness. It seems like he hasn't though, except for his hairdo. Oh wait, never mind. A Who girl's hairdo would never be so plain. It just seems a little long in the back, y'know?

Now I'm not trying to be mean or anything. I actually kinda like him. He's the least problematic when it comes to these annual photos. He stands still where he needs to stand and smiles when he needs to smile. That's one less kid I have to worry about leaping on me and knocking me into equipment.

It looks like another little one might be just like that Penelope girl, though. Actually Penelope has mellowed down some, but this one, Cecilia, seems almost worse. I swear, one of these days she's going to knock me down. And when she does, I'm going to laugh. At least, I'll laugh after shouting out and/or groaning in pain.

I have to admit, despite how annoying they can get, I really do look forward to seeing the McDodds. It pretty much outweighs my dread. They're so out of the ordinary. Even though they always try to come on the exact same Tuesday, (though sometimes they miss and come on the second Tuesday rather than the first) them coming has very little order to it. Do you know what I mean? I know what to expect, yet at the exact same time I have no idea what to expect. They're fun, I guess.

"Ingrid! You have customers!" Mr. Egorant snaps.

I snort and sit up, realizing that I had actually ended up falling asleep at the counter. I shake my head and look over at the door, already knowing who it was. Of course, how could anybody not know what the whole crowd of little girl voices belonged to? It was the McDodds, back for another one of their annual family photos.

They're all one year older and, just like the last year, there seems to be no new additions to the family.

"Hello, Ingrid," Mr. Mayor says to me, smiling his usual smile.

I can't help but smile back. Looks like today won't be so boring anymore. "Hello Mr. Mayor. Hello Sally," I say to them. We have a bit of small talk before I get right to business. Mr. Egorant frowns upon dawdling. "What type of backdrop would you like this time?"

The End


End file.
